Jump to content

Muny_Tex

Full Members
  • Posts

    176
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Muny_Tex

  1. In recognition of the press conference, my favorite Yordan moment is from August 2019, which was Greinke’s first start after the blockbuster deadline trade. Huge sellout crowd for a weeknight game, buzzing loud right out of the gate for the postseason hype….and Yordan blasts a bomb in his first AB so loud it actually made the crowd briefly gasp before cheering, almost like a gunshot or mortar round had gone off. That is always my go-to for what it means to truly “kill” a baseball. Congrats, big man, on the extension…we are extremely fortunate to have you in Houston for years to come. Also as an aside: Interesting to see Mike Trout instantly go into an 0-26 the moment the Angels are in playoff contention…yet he would still out-tally Yordan by 3-1 margin if MVP media voting was today; simply laughable.
  2. I’m late to this party, but he hit .167 with 1 RBI in the ALCS before that WS embarrassment; which is part of what made it so obnoxious.
  3. Op-Ed in today’s WSJ opposes a proposed cut in FHA loan premiums. Haven’t seen topic discussed on this thread (I don’t think?), so interested to hear perspectives from our resident gurus. ******** The Fed’s housing support has been a boon for current home owners. Many have been able to refinance mortgages and slash their monthly payments by hundreds of dollars. Ninety-eight percent of homes with conventional 30-year mortgages have rates lower than 5%. But the losers are low- and middle-income Americans who don’t own homes and now can’t afford to buy them as the Fed finally raises rates. The 30-year fixed mortgage is now hovering at 5.1% to 5.3%, the highest since the summer of 2009. This has the Biden Administration looking for ways to offset rising mortgage rates. One idea from the housing lobby is to cut Federal Housing Administration premiums. The FHA insures mortgages for buyers with low credit scores and down payments as low as 3.5%. Home-buyers pay a 1.75% fee up front on a 30-year loan and then an annual premium of 0.8% to 1.05%, depending on the size of the loan and down payment. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-make-housing-less-affordable-federal-housing-administration-mortgage-insurance-premiums-biden-11653854542?mod=opinion_lead_pos4
  4. Didn’t read the whole thread, here’s my .02 as someone who briefly lived in downtown SD and commuted to LA for concerts regularly. Greek Theater is my favorite music venue on the planet, by a fairly wide margin. It is imperative that you do not miss that opportunity. It is kinda dumb to stay overnight between LA/SD, but it is way dumber to make the drive all the way back after a concert (will kill the vibes and may end up being a multi-hour shitshow…getting out of the immediate surroundings of the venue right after a show is not an easy task in…and parking may be a whole separate $$$ debacle). My reco is to find/splurge on an Airbnb directly in Los Feliz that will enable yall to walk to/from the show and make the most of that experience. You’ll also be able to go hike up to Griffith Observatory depending on how long you stay which is always worthwhile. Half the appeal of the Greek is the way it’s situated on the neighborhood hilltop, and there’s a great food/drink scene (and cool old houses) all over the area…kinda like a Dallas Bishop Arts only with extremely nice natural scenery….you lose all that benefit if you try to just drive up and park like you’re going to Six Flags or some shit. Yes, there technically are “nice” places to stay along the way back…but that should be a whole separate activity, unless you’re just extremely passionate about getting into frigid cold water at the beach for ~10 minutes the following morning. Bottom line, the concert is the prize and should be prioritized accordingly…don’t overcomplicate things trying to check a box in fucking Oceanside.
  5. Per Rome (and confirmed on team site), the Father’s Day home game vs. ChiSox has been moved to 6:05 on ESPN. Kinda shitty deal on pretty late notice…especially for those of us out-of-towners who bought tickets with day game expectations.
  6. Also: If Sandy Hook/2012 was the turning point for that bullshit, then the proliferation of social media right around that same time probably wasn’t helpful. If my memory serves, that’s right around when Instagram became a thing and Facebook began its transformation from college kids to boomers/white trash as its core constituency.
  7. When did private ownership of AR’s become trendy/widespread? Was it after Sandy Hook, presumably as an “F you” to Obama? Did NRA/GOP shift their messaging at this point as well? I certainly don’t recall the original “cold dead hands” prop having a 30-round mag hanging out of it… I joined Army in 2011 and didn’t even know what an M4 was before then; and my perception of an “assault weapon” was something like a gatling gun from old black and white movies…so it had to have been sometime after that time frame I guess my point is, something this recently popular shouldn’t be that hard to eradicate. Say what you want about the futility of wholesale gun control overall, but I truly think “this time it’s different” with respect to major reforms relating to military weapons…the cop catastrophe is gonna be the last straw for millions of people; this shit is just indefensible and (finally!) is about to be politically untenable now as well. Writing is on the wall, it’s just sickening that these kids and their families had to bear the burden
  8. You have to start and finish with eradicating the unions; no meaningful reform/rebuilding can occur outside that framework.
  9. ^^^He’s trying to obtain a brand new loan in lieu of liquidating college fund accounts. I don’t know much about student loans (thank God), but I believe your kid needs to fill out a FAFSA regardless of your earnings/assets in order initiate eligibility for certain loan programs (e.g. the federal ones with lowest interest rates). As part of that same pursuit, I would prob speak with Financial Aid office at your son’s school and just tell them your best case scenario…even if they feed your horseshit advice it’s still a useful data point for comparison purposes. Lastly, I would consider speaking with one of the real estate/lending gurus (Wulaw or UTPhil) to explore other avenues like 2nd mortgage and/or LOC’s that could help you accomplish same goals with potentially better terms/flexibility. From what I’ve gathered, you are among the true Surly 1% so may be better to leverage some of the monster assets you already have rather than starting from scratch on a school-only loan like a poor person typically would. Also potentially a whole host of tax implications involved with certain courses of actions, so prob want to think that through as well. Best wishes and sorry about your stocks. Your kid is lucky to have your support and I hope he appreciates/pays it forward.
  10. Also, questions for the lawdogs out there: How valid is victim family’s case for wrongful death against the biker bro, seeing as he purchased/gifted the murder weapon to someone who was exhibiting signs of mental illness and had a clear vendetta against her “rival”? Will family’s recourse be civil only, or is there a criminal case to be made as well?
  11. 99.984% sure she’s already killed herself A broad genius enough to park in front of victim’s next door neighbor as means of concealing her crime has seemingly zero chance of evading arrest/detection for this long.
  12. Might be appropriate to give Enoli another look in middle relief at some point relatively soon. 22 K’s in 16 IP thus far, with a 0.56 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP is pretty damn salty. I know his nerves/mental issues immediately became evident once the fans returned to ballparks, but I don’t think he should be permanently condemned. If I was GM of a shitty team I would be all about trying to “buy low” on him via trade and rolling the dice knowing upside potential is massive. EDIT: Dug deeper and he’s still at 5.5 BB/9 so far this season…dammit Enoli
  13. Interesting episode of George Gammon’s “Rebel Capitalist” podcast today, guest was real estate guru Jason Hartman. Dude obviously has a strong bias for owning properties over equities, but couple of POVs stood out to me (I don’t necessarily agree with all): 1.) Real estate doesn’t “crash” anything like stocks in terms of speed/velocity…Hartman claimed that the full drawdown/bottom out of the GFC took almost 6 years to occur; whereas we’ve now had 2 separate stock market events in past ~2 years where we’ve had >20% index losses in matter of weeks. 2.) Even if Blackrock’s of the world sour on real estate, they aren’t gonna dump all ~80K of their holdings in a single swoop to the degree that most stock liquidations (or margin calls) often function…it would typically be done targeted/gradual manner that wouldn’t create huge surplus housing inventories overnight. 3.) Lower/mid-level price homes are particularly strong assets in downturns/rate hikes, because even if entry level buyers with $300k budgets are priced out of market entirely, other groups that previously qualified for $400k often “shift down” to take their place…therefore protecting demand for those same properties. (NOTE: I agree with this viewpoint 1000%, which is why I’ve always been a cheapest/turnkey place in best location kind of investor). 4.) Rent increases tend to lag surging purchase prices by ~2 years…and we’ve only recently started to see the spikes in rental markets, so there’s still theoretically a lot more room to rise barring a full scale recession bloodbath. 5.) Effective way to gauge “affordability” of a home right now as an owner/occupant is through same lens that prospective investor will use: basic RV ratio. If the RV delivers the standard .7 or better, and you’re in a linear/non-cyclical market (ie CenTex)…you’re probably good to go even if the price has gone way up in past couple of years…your chances of getting huge rent relief are not likely.
  14. MVP/World Champion ‘Tuve was solidly #3, which continued all the way through 2018. If my memory serves, the impetus to move him to the 2-hole was predicated on Bregman’s monster 2019, which has obviously proven to be a massive aberration (at best).
  15. My preference: Peña Brantley Altuve Alvarez Tucker Gurriel Bregman Machete Chas/CF
  16. I know it’s gonna balance out near the end of June with CWS, NYM, NYY, etc…but I can’t remember a ~6 week stretch of opponents more favorable than it’s been since start of May. Particularly good timing to ride this wave right as the Angels were playing their best ball in many years, maybe their spirit is already breaking after that recent string of L’s.
  17. He hasn’t been good for a long time and has consistently exuded Baker Mayfield-type vibes ever since he did that bush league bat carry in the ‘19 WS.
  18. Absolutely true, and same principle applies to indirect measures such as student loan “forgiveness”….but adherence to sound fiscal policy is not necessarily gonna stop panicked efforts to remain in power when faced with horribad polling…can’t really elaborate further without taking the convo into the cloaky cesspool. Edit: Fed/govt continues to operate a year behind the power curve, which is making this worse. Time to cut rates/soften demand was long ago…priority now should be boosting productivity through targeted expansionary action and removal of red tape…instead we are about start hemorrhaging jobs to go along with needless collapse of asset prices both of which will do absolutely zero to address the critical shortage of essential goods.
  19. Assuming that’s not rhetorical…I would posit that a bunch of new stimulus and loan programs will be launched with midterms in mind
  20. So again, am confused as to why Joel Klatt is the only person/entity actually confirming a kickoff time if it’s such an unavoidable guarantee. I will continue to believe there’s more to the story until UT/Bama publish something definitive.
  21. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s still a *long* way down when you consider the disastrous macro environment + supply chain that is nowhere close to repair. Nasdaq is still roughly 35% above the Covid trough, and damn near double where it began the 2017 bull run. What exactly is the case for optimism in stocks right now? Abandonment of rate hikes + QE5 (and corresponding crash of USD)?
  22. By how much has the median housing sales price increased since the “magic 3%” became a thing?
  23. I’m still (irrationally) clinging to fact that neither school has made an announcement or listed a kickoff time on their official athletics sites…unless I missed something? CDC knows how much incremental $$$ is at stake for a primetime kick (even his pregame concert + carnival gong show doesn’t work with 11am), so maybe a miracle can occur.
  24. Nasdaq still has over 30% of room to free-fall before reaching the Covid bottom; and damn near 50% before reaching the Jan 2017 ranges
  25. Agree 1000%, but I do think there’s a way forward if we are willing to set egos/bias aside and capitalize on the resources we have available. There are many wonderful homes in places the Birmingham and Huntsville suburbs for under $300k, other examples like Little Rock also apply…but people (especially certain urbanites) don’t want to live somewhere “redneck banjo” when there’s actually a lot to love in places like that If you’re family oriented. The work-from-home revolution is just about the only potential net positive for Covid as a whole…people have to just be willing to make the leap and invest/immerse/support “3rd tier” cities and the long term results will be tremendous. People need community, they need a stake in their own livelihood, and they need to get the hell out of hyper-crowded urban areas where abject poverty and obscene luxury are becoming the only lifestyles. People have developed very skewed views of “livability” because they generally only know what they know. Austin is an oasis if you come from a west coast/northeast hellscape, but it’s a terrible beating if you grew up in this town and value things like room to breathe, permanence, and not fucking littering everywhere.
×
×
  • Create New...